I view hundreds of articles each day and have become accustomed to death and cruelty. But every now and then a story will stay with me - the headline or by-line replaying in my mind. Four days ago I read a headline - a few simple, innocent words that said so much. They were the words of a three year old girl.
"He hurted me in the shower."
That is how the tiny tot described to police how her mother's partner put her under a scalding shower as punishment for wetting her pants. I once spilled a bucket of scalding water on my stomach and have a fair idea of how it must have felt. The difference however, is I had no idea it was going to happen, this little girl probably did.
When I have a shower, I first turn on the hot water then add cold before stepping under. I can not imagine being forced under that hot shower and her words come back to me. Don't get me wrong, I do not dwell on it, but I can't ignore it either.
Her mother also confessed to whipping her daughter with a kettle cord for the same "offence."
The Sydney Morning Herald describes how "the pair waited until the little girl's eyes swelled from her burns before they called an ambulance." She suffered burns to her shoulder, back, legs and substantial bruising.
"Dirty crepe bandages covered her wounds, and doctors administered an intravenous morphine drip to remove the bandages and ease her pain."
The couple can not be named because a minor is involved, (even if minors commit crimes, their names can not be publicised) but the woman also has another son - born just last April. That little boy is five months old and is suffering cannabis and amphetamine withdrawal.
The judge said "both had entered early guilty pleas and had no previous record of child abuse, however, there was no other appropriate sentence than imprisonment"
They were jailed for a maximum of two years with a non-parole period of one year to expire on October 18 next year.
There is no parole for the little girl who was sentenced to remember being , "hurted" in the shower for the rest of her life.
* These bastards are now out of jail, their sentence over. For the little girl however, there is no early release.
Wherever you may be - be safe
Copyright Mike Hitchen Online, Lane Cove, NSW, Australia. All rights reserved
Edgar Ray Killen
First published June 22, 2005
Edgar Ray Killen, an 80-year-old former Ku Klux Klansman has been convicted of manslaughter in the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.
The jury of nine whites and three blacks reached the verdict on their second day of deliberations, rejecting murder charges against Edgar Ray Killen.
On July 4, 2004, Killen was interviewed by Richard Barrett, the founder and leader of the Nationalist Movement, a white supremacist organization based in Learned, Mississippi.
Barrett is best known for staging well-publicized rallies, often following legal actions that uphold the group's free speech rights. It was Barrett who last year advertised that Killen would hand out leaflets at the state fair. Killen's wife, Betty Jo, later told reporters, "Richard Barrett wanted publicity and he got plenty".
During the interview, Killen was asked who he most admired. Killen replied,
"Big Jim" Eastland. I used to go to see him a lot. The security guards would always let me in. I got stopped for speeding on the way to his house one time and the patrolman just waved me through".
U.S. Sen. James O. "Big Jim" Eastland, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, boasted 30 years in office. Historian Robert Caro recorded Eastland, then the powerful chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, as taking the lectern and calling blacks "African flesh eaters ... slimy, juicy, unbearably stinking niggers".
To Killen and others like him, Big Jim was a hero.
Killen likes to boast about his friendship with Eastland - and Eastland's power and influence.
"We would talk a lot and he would say that he would do anything he could for me. He was a powerful man and could bottle up laws that were wrong. He even told me that Bobby Kennedy once asked him to pick someone to succeed J. Edgar Hoover, because his brother was fixing to fire Hoover.
When "Big Jim" said that he was supporting Hoover, no matter what, Bobby came back and said that he gave in. Hoover stayed on".
Influential friends and promises of support, flow from Killen's poisoned tongue like the Mississippi. Violence it seems, is never far from him.
Barrett mentioned William Winter, former Democratic governor of Mississippi.
"William Winter was a major opponent of the flag, who got beaten badly".
Killen told his friend that,
"When he was running for office, Winter came up to me and told me that he was "on my side", but that he would have to keep it quiet. I asked his wife if he was a man of his word and she said, "Oh, yes". But, he was not. He was one of the worst we've ever had.
"Little Jimmy" Swan told me that if he [Swan] was elected and I ever needed a pardon, he would give it to me. Congressman Arthur Winstead, also, was a close friend, who would call me and back me up".
Barrett also raised the question of Killen's earlier trial, although there was no mention of murder, manslaughter or slaying.
"You were put on trial, once, over trying to keep Communists out of Mississippi".
In his usual style, the now convicted pastor replied,
"Old John Doar kept staring at me, like he was trying to look right through me. I stared right back at him and sent him a signal that made him mad. He was really mad when he could not convict me".
Barrett has little time for communists which may explain his reluctance to mention the violent deaths of three young men.
In a news conference at the Neshoba County Courthouse, on June 15, 2005, following opening arguments, Barrett compared the 1964 "Communist-invaders" to the 1775 Red-Coat invaders and called upon the world to stand with Mississippi in defense of home, blood, land and rights. When asked about the prospects for, "defeating Communism and integration," Killen quoted R. G. Lee, a Memphis preacher, "Payday's Coming".
Edgar Ray Killen. It's finally time for you to pay.
James Chaney your body exploded in pain,
And the beating they gave you is pounding my brain.
And they murdered much more with their dark bloody chains.
And the body of pity lies bleeding.
Tom Paxton, "Goodman and Schwerner and Chaney"
Wherever you may be - be safe
Copyright Mike Hitchen Online, Lane Cove, NSW, Australia. All rights reserved
Edgar Ray Killen, an 80-year-old former Ku Klux Klansman has been convicted of manslaughter in the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.The jury of nine whites and three blacks reached the verdict on their second day of deliberations, rejecting murder charges against Edgar Ray Killen.
On July 4, 2004, Killen was interviewed by Richard Barrett, the founder and leader of the Nationalist Movement, a white supremacist organization based in Learned, Mississippi.
Barrett is best known for staging well-publicized rallies, often following legal actions that uphold the group's free speech rights. It was Barrett who last year advertised that Killen would hand out leaflets at the state fair. Killen's wife, Betty Jo, later told reporters, "Richard Barrett wanted publicity and he got plenty".
During the interview, Killen was asked who he most admired. Killen replied,
"Big Jim" Eastland. I used to go to see him a lot. The security guards would always let me in. I got stopped for speeding on the way to his house one time and the patrolman just waved me through".
U.S. Sen. James O. "Big Jim" Eastland, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, boasted 30 years in office. Historian Robert Caro recorded Eastland, then the powerful chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, as taking the lectern and calling blacks "African flesh eaters ... slimy, juicy, unbearably stinking niggers".
To Killen and others like him, Big Jim was a hero.
Killen likes to boast about his friendship with Eastland - and Eastland's power and influence.
"We would talk a lot and he would say that he would do anything he could for me. He was a powerful man and could bottle up laws that were wrong. He even told me that Bobby Kennedy once asked him to pick someone to succeed J. Edgar Hoover, because his brother was fixing to fire Hoover.
When "Big Jim" said that he was supporting Hoover, no matter what, Bobby came back and said that he gave in. Hoover stayed on".
Influential friends and promises of support, flow from Killen's poisoned tongue like the Mississippi. Violence it seems, is never far from him.
Barrett mentioned William Winter, former Democratic governor of Mississippi.
"William Winter was a major opponent of the flag, who got beaten badly".
Killen told his friend that,
"When he was running for office, Winter came up to me and told me that he was "on my side", but that he would have to keep it quiet. I asked his wife if he was a man of his word and she said, "Oh, yes". But, he was not. He was one of the worst we've ever had.
"Little Jimmy" Swan told me that if he [Swan] was elected and I ever needed a pardon, he would give it to me. Congressman Arthur Winstead, also, was a close friend, who would call me and back me up".
Barrett also raised the question of Killen's earlier trial, although there was no mention of murder, manslaughter or slaying.
"You were put on trial, once, over trying to keep Communists out of Mississippi".
In his usual style, the now convicted pastor replied,
"Old John Doar kept staring at me, like he was trying to look right through me. I stared right back at him and sent him a signal that made him mad. He was really mad when he could not convict me".
Barrett has little time for communists which may explain his reluctance to mention the violent deaths of three young men.
In a news conference at the Neshoba County Courthouse, on June 15, 2005, following opening arguments, Barrett compared the 1964 "Communist-invaders" to the 1775 Red-Coat invaders and called upon the world to stand with Mississippi in defense of home, blood, land and rights. When asked about the prospects for, "defeating Communism and integration," Killen quoted R. G. Lee, a Memphis preacher, "Payday's Coming".
Edgar Ray Killen. It's finally time for you to pay.
James Chaney your body exploded in pain,
And the beating they gave you is pounding my brain.
And they murdered much more with their dark bloody chains.
And the body of pity lies bleeding.
Tom Paxton, "Goodman and Schwerner and Chaney"
Wherever you may be - be safe
Copyright Mike Hitchen Online, Lane Cove, NSW, Australia. All rights reserved
Bush and Democracy
First published January 02, 2007Probably the biggest news item recently is the farcical demonstration of democracy and justice in "liberated Iraq".
The best that can be said about the "Mississippi Burning" type lynching, is that the timing of the execution is the only thing the American administration has managed to get right in the hell hole they have created.
As one poster to this blog quite rightly pointed out - dead men tell no tales.
For those who would like documented details of Rumsfeld's trips to Iraq in 1983 and 1984, the National Security Archive has a fascination collection of official documents, cables, and meeting transcripts.
I suggest: Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein and Saddam Hussein: More Secret History
Oh I know the indoctrinated, uninformed "Ugly Americans" who are sadly more loudly heard than the vast majority of decent Americans, will jump out of their comfy armchairs, and brand me a Saddam Lover, pinko, and all the other ineffective tags their limited education and limited exposure to unbiased informed sources permit - but let them.
You see, no one takes any notice of such people anymore - they have become a laughing stock even within their own country. They shuffle along on the lower strata's of the socio-intellectual scrap heap, happily oblivious to the fact that their idols have turned a once great nation into a laughing stock.
They stand on the world stage, selling their tawdry goods - but no one is buying anymore. We know too much.
I love America and I love the ordinary Americans - and though I am an "alien" I resent what that man and his partners in crime have done to a nation that has given the world so much.
Wherever you may be - be safe
Copyright Mike Hitchen Online, Lane Cove, NSW, Australia. All rights reserved
The children of New Orleans
First published Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Time to put the blog to bed for the night!
Tonight I was watching our SBS World News, which along with Australia's ABC, is the only news worth watching. Sadly, the news on other stations is basically mind candy for those who like to be told what to think, rather than go to all that bother of having to think things through for themselves.
An SBS film crew were touring New Orleans in a boat when they were flagged down and asked to go to a house where five young children were stranded.
The footage showed the crew entering the house - and the body of their dead mother lying on a bed. The children had stayed with her for five days.
The camera crew took the children away in their boat. The children were silent. They didn't need to speak, their faces spoke for them.
I looked at their faces and could see their past - and their future.
I doubt that many will ever know what happens to those children, the twists and turns their lives will take.
Maybe they will remember the men with strange accents who gently led them away. I am sure that the crew involved will always remember them.
And you know, I can not honestly say that I will remember them. Will I see their faces play before me in the theatre of my mind? Probably not if I am honest. Sure, they may stay with me for a while, and in the years to come even cross my mind now and then.
But in reality, for me their lives only lasted a short time. But the children can't switch channels. For them it is reality TV for life. Except in their show - there are no winners.
Wherever you may be - be safe
Copyright Mike Hitchen Online, Lane Cove, NSW, Australia. All rights reserved
Time to put the blog to bed for the night!
Tonight I was watching our SBS World News, which along with Australia's ABC, is the only news worth watching. Sadly, the news on other stations is basically mind candy for those who like to be told what to think, rather than go to all that bother of having to think things through for themselves.
An SBS film crew were touring New Orleans in a boat when they were flagged down and asked to go to a house where five young children were stranded.
The footage showed the crew entering the house - and the body of their dead mother lying on a bed. The children had stayed with her for five days.
The camera crew took the children away in their boat. The children were silent. They didn't need to speak, their faces spoke for them.
I looked at their faces and could see their past - and their future.
I doubt that many will ever know what happens to those children, the twists and turns their lives will take.
Maybe they will remember the men with strange accents who gently led them away. I am sure that the crew involved will always remember them.
And you know, I can not honestly say that I will remember them. Will I see their faces play before me in the theatre of my mind? Probably not if I am honest. Sure, they may stay with me for a while, and in the years to come even cross my mind now and then.
But in reality, for me their lives only lasted a short time. But the children can't switch channels. For them it is reality TV for life. Except in their show - there are no winners.
Wherever you may be - be safe
Copyright Mike Hitchen Online, Lane Cove, NSW, Australia. All rights reserved
Don Rumsfeld and the art of hypocrisy
First published on ASRM July 2004, republished i On Global Trends, May 26, 2005On Wednesday May 25, Don Rumsfeld addressed a luncheon of the World Affairs Council in Philadelphia.
In that speech he complained that one of the military's new wartime challenges is dealing with global media that can instantly spread around the world, information that may be false or damaging to U.S. interests ABC
Furthermore, he voiced his concern about, "a global Internet with universal access and no inhibitions, e-mail, cell phones, digital cameras wielded by anyone and everyone."
His defenders will no doubt repeat Rumsfeld's own words to defend his opportunistic attack on misuse of information - "information that may be false or damaging to U.S. interests."
However, The United States has never been slow to use self proclaimed information warriors and perception management to further U.S. interests.
That is why perception managers, The Rendon Group, received a $100,000 a month no-bid contract for assistance with the "war on terror." The same group was hired by the CIA to wage a propaganda campaign against Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War, earning them a reported $23 million in the first year alone.
In Afghanistan, John Rendon, (responsible for hundreds of Kuwaitis suddenly being able to get their hands on US flags to welcome US troops), joined a conference call with the Pentagon each morning to decide the message for the day.
Anyone remember the Kuwait baby scam? Years after that deception, Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor at the time said it was, " useful in mobilizing public opinion." For several Congressmen it was also the main factor in voting for the Gulf War.
That deception involved PR company Hill & Knowlton deciding that the best way to get the public to respond to going to war, was to give the public that old emotional heart string puller - mistreatment of infants.
That's why a 15 year old girl weeping her poor little heart out, described how she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers taking babies out of incubators, leaving them on the cold floor to die.
Gets you right in the heart doesn't it. The bastards, lets bomb the crap out of those goddamn sonsovbitches. Let's send John Wayne and Randolph Scott and kick their asses.
What she didn't say, and which was later revealed, was that she had no connection with the hospital, was a member of the Kuwaiti royal family and her dad, the Kuwait Ambassador to the US.
The whole thing was a campaign of misinformation - the sort Rumsfeld is keen to attack when used by others.
Let's look at more recent events. Last year, A survey of Americans showed that 70% believed Hussein/Iraq were tied to Sept 11. It is a tremendous victory for perception management. What is more, many American soldiers believed they were in Iraq because of Sept 11. Dick Cheney was aware of that perception.
In an interview with the, Rocky Mountain News 1/9/2004 the reporter told him, "Sir, I was one of the embedded reporters with the 101st in Iraq" and "It was amazing, yeah. When I was in Iraq, some of the soldiers said they believed they were fighting because of the Sept. 11 attacks and because they thought Saddam Hussein had ties to al Qaeda. You've repeatedly cited such links. I heard your speech in Denver a while back." (seeIraq On The Record )
In response, Cheney gave the following misleading example,
"And you can look at Zarkawi, (Abu Mussab) al-Zarkawi . . . Who was an al-Qaida associate, who was wounded in Afghanistan, took refuge in Baghdad, working out of Baghdad, worked with the Ansar al Islam group up in north-eastern Iraq, that produced a so-called poison factory, a group that we hit when we went into Iraq. . . ."
The statement refers to the Ansar al Islam group in North eastern Iraq. What Cheney fails to mention is that this area was not controlled by Saddam Hussein. Possibly he used the phrase "so called" because when the US Special Forces raided the camp in March 2003, nothing resembling chemical or biological weapons was found. It is a distortion of the facts.
Rumsfeld complains about the use of new technology to spread misinformation. Yet the U.S had no hesitation using "old technology" to spread U.S propaganda in The Middle East, during the 1950s.
Documents held by, National Security Archive at George Washington University, describe an "earlier program to expand and revitalize American propaganda directed at the Middle East, and the methods that were utilized, including graphic displays, manipulation of the news, books, movies, cartoons, activities directed at schools and universities, and exchange programs.
But why am I writing this? How silly of me not to remember the standards the U.S. insist upon with other countries, never apply to the defender of truth, liberty, and justice.
Wherever you may be - be safe
Copyright Mike Hitchen Online, Lane Cove, NSW, Australia. All rights reserved
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